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[smileyobrien]

STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS — 2.07 "Those Old Scientists"

[eretzyisrael]

BY PARK MACDOUGALD

The “movement,” in turn, while it recruits from among students and other self-motivated radicals willing to put their bodies on the line, relies heavily on the funding of progressive donors and nonprofits connected to the upper reaches of the Democratic Party. Take the epicenter of the nationwide protest movement, Columbia University. According to reporting in the New York Post, the Columbia encampment was principally organized by three groups: Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), and Within Our Lifetime (WOL). Let’s take each in turn.

JVP is, in essence, the “Jewish”-branch of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, backed by the usual big-money progressive donors—including some, like the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, that were instrumental in selling Obama’s Iran Deal to the public. JVP and its affiliated political action arm, JVP Action, have received at least $650,000 from various branches of George Soros’ philanthropic empire since 2017, $441,510 from the Kaphan Foundation (founded by early Amazon employee Sheldon Kaphan), $340,000 from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and smaller amounts from progressive donors such as the Quitiplas Foundation, according to reporting from the New York Post and NGO Monitor, a pro-Israel research institute. JVP has also received nearly $1.5 million from various donor-advised funds—which allow wealthy clients to give anonymously through their financial institutions—run through the charitable giving arms of Fidelity Investments, Charles Schwab, Morgan Stanley, Vanguard, and TIAA, according to NGO Monitor’s review of those institutions’ tax documents.

SJP, by contrast, is an outgrowth of the Islamist networks dissolved during the U.S. government’s prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) and related charities for fundraising for Hamas. SJP is a subsidiary of an organization called American Muslims for Palestine (AMP); SJP in fact has no “formal corporate structure of its own but operates as AMP’s campus brand,” according to a lawsuit filed last week against AJP Educational Fund, the parent nonprofit of AMP. Both AMP and SJP were founded by the same man, Hatem Bazian, a Palestinian academic who formerly fundraised for KindHearts, an Islamic charity dissolved in 2012 pursuant to a settlement with the U.S. Treasury, which froze the group’s assets for fundraising for Hamas (KindHearts did not admit wrongdoing in the settlement). And several of AMP’s senior leaders are former fundraisers for HLF and related charities, according to November congressional testimony from former U.S. Treasury official Jonathan Schanzer. An ongoing federal lawsuit by the family of David Boim, an American teenager killed in a Hamas terrorist attack in 1996, goes so far as to allege that AMP is a “disguised continuance” and “legal alter-ego” of the Islamic Association for Palestine, was founded with startup money from current Hamas official Musa Abu Marzook and dissolved alongside HLF. AMP has denied it is a continuation of IAP.

Today, however, National SJP is legally a “fiscal sponsorship” of another nonprofit: a White Plains, New York, 501(c)(3) called the WESPAC Foundation. A fiscal sponsorship is a legal arrangement in which a larger nonprofit “sponsors” a smaller group, essentially lending it the sponsor’s tax-exempt status and providing back-office support in exchange for fees and influence over the sponsorship’s operations. For legal and tax purposes, the sponsor and the sponsorship are the same entity, meaning that the sponsorship is relieved of the requirement to independently disclose its donors or file a Form 990 with the IRS. This makes fiscal sponsorships a “convenient way to mask links between donors and controversial causes,” according to the Capital Research Center. Donors, in other words, can effectively use nonprofits such as WESPAC to obscure their direct connections to controversial causes.

Something of the sort appears to be happening with WESPAC. Run by the market researcher Howard Horowitz, WESPAC reveals very little about its donors, although scattered reporting and public disclosures suggest that the group is used as a pass-through between larger institutions and pro-Palestinian radicals. Since 2006, for instance, WESPAC has received more than half a million in donations from the Elias Foundation, a family foundation run by the private equity investor James Mann and his wife. WESPAC has also received smaller amounts from Grassroots International (an “environmental” group heavily funded by Thousand Currents), the Sparkplug Foundation (a far-left group funded by the Wall Street fortune of Felice and Yoram Gelman), and the Bafrayung Fund, run by Rachel Gelman, an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune and the sister of Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman. (A self-described “abolitionist,” Gelman was featured in a 2020 New York Times feature on “The Rich Kids Who Want to Tear Down Capitalism.”) In 2022, WESPAC also received $97,000 from the Tides Foundation, the grant-making arm of the Tides Nexus.

WESPAC, however, is not merely the fiscal sponsor of the Hamas-linked SJP but also the fiscal sponsor of the third group involved in organizing the Columbia protests, Within Our Lifetime (WOL), formerly known as New York City SJP. Founded by the Palestinian American lawyer Nerdeen Kiswani, a former activist with the Hunter College and CUNY chapters of SJP, WOL has emerged over the past seven months as perhaps the most notorious antisemitic group in the country, and has been banned from Facebook and Instagram for glorifying Hamas. A full list of the group’s provocations would take thousands of words, but it has been the central organizing force in the series of “Flood”-themed protests in New York City since Oct. 7, including multiple bridge and highway blockades, a November riot at Grand Central Station, the vandalism of the New York Public Library, and protests at the Rockefeller Center Christmas-tree lighting. In addition to their confrontational tactics, WOL-led protests tend to have a few other hallmarks. These include eliminationist rhetoric directed at the Jewish state—such as Arabic chants of “strike, strike, Tel Aviv”; the prominent display of Hezbollah flags and other insignia of explicitly Islamist resistance; the presence of masked Arab street muscle; and the antisemitic intimidation of counterprotesters by said masked Arab street muscle.

WOL’s role appears to be that of shock troops, akin to the role played by black block militants on the anarchist side of the ledger. WOL is, however, connected to more seemingly “mainstream” elements of the anti-Israel movement. Abdullah Akl, a prominent WOL leader—indeed, the man leading the “strike Tel Aviv” chants in the video linked above—is also listed as a “field organizer” on the website of MPower Change, the “advocacy project” led by Linda Sarsour. MPower Change, in turn, is a fiscal sponsorship of NEO Philanthropy, another large progressive clearinghouse. NEO Philanthropy and its 501(c)(4) “sister,” NEO Philanthropy Action Fund, have received more than $37 million from Soros’ Open Society Foundations since 2021 alone, as well as substantial funding from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Ford Foundation, and the Tides Foundation.

[tigereyes45]

could I get some t'lyn x mariner with some mind melding maybe? some vulcan culture in there perhaps? admittedly I haven't read much for this ship bc the last time I looked which was ages ago there was like two fics lmao anyway! :3

You asked for Mind Melding, I used it as an excuse to get them together. XD

Ao3 link:

Description:

T'lyn can not focus. Mariner offers to help.

Full Story (more below the cut):

T’lyn sits in the dark, doing her best to meditate. She had hoped the privacy of her room would alleviate some of her struggles. Yet there has been no change. She slowly exhales and unfolds her legs. Many things have become more difficult here on the Cerritos, but meditating is still as much of a struggle now, as it had been amongst fellow vulcans.

Well, if she can not meditate she should work.

Pushing herself off the ground, T’lyn looks over at her desk. A single PADD sits in the very center of her desk. She had left it there, hoping distance would make meditation easier. It had not. The urge to rise, and continue focusing on the same set of reports that had left her originally confused, was pointless. If she could not focus, she could not finish her work, and since she can not meditate then her focus will not get better.

She stands still, wondering if there is any point in trying when she already knows the outcome. A small part of her temporarily considers what the most logical course of action would be. Of course the answer is to meditate.

Which she can not.

Stuck between her limited choices, T’lyn is almost relieved when there’s a ping at her door. If she were not vulcan, perhaps she would have been. She is still a little quick to leave her choices behind her for the door.

“Hey T’lyn.” Mariner waves before pointing down the hall. “Sam and Boims are hosting a game night in their room. Want to join?”

T’lyn glances down the hall. It could provide a worthy distraction, but it will not improve her concentration. “No.”

“You sure?” Mariner asks, her smile shrinks slightly. “With Tendi gone, I need a new teammate.”

Mariner enjoys talking. She is quite emotionally driven, and instinctual. Somehow this makes her incredibly perceptive. If she does not convince the other woman to leave now, no doubt she will detect an issue of some sort and then will not go. T’lyn raises a hand to stop her. “I need to complete a report.”

“Oh okay,” Mariner’s face falls, but there’s a familiar change in her eyes. T’lyn glances behind her. Has something about the state of her room given away her lack of focus? The bed was made, her desk is clear, the candles around where she had attempted meditation were still lit. Ah, that must be it.

When T’lyn looks back Mariner has made the same connection. “You alright?”

Lying would only feed the human’s curiosity. “I have been experiencing a lack of focus.”

T’lyn steps back, and Mariner takes the chance to walk inside. “Any way I can help?”

“Talking the matter over will not change the effect.” T’lyn folds her arms behind her back.

Mariner looks around the room, as if trying to discern if she could take a seat somewhere or not. When she faces T’lyn again she has decided to stand, like T’lyn.

“Well is there a way I can help where you don’t have to talk?” Mariner’s arms once again flail about as she talks. She has a habit of speaking with her body, just as much as her words. It’s an emotional display. T’lyn has noted Mariner engages in it much more than many of her peers.

“You mean the mind meld.” She is a physical creature and what she is offering right now is anything but.

“Well, it’s one option right?”

One. She says it as if she had considered any other options at all. Somehow T’lyn doubts that she did. In the short time she has known Mariner, the human always leads with her first thought.

T’lyn raises her head. She purposely meets Mariner’s eyes, ready to read them. “This is the second time you have shown interest in vulcan mind melds.”

The first time she had seemed far more fearful. She should be right now. Mind melds are no simple matter. 

“It’s something you guys can do that we can’t. What’s not interesting.” 

T’lyn can feel her eyes narrow. Why does Mariner do that? She always downplays her natural reactions. Holding up a guard, and refusing to acknowledge that one is there at all. 

In another life she would have been the model of a vulcan for all of her emotional outbursts would have been squashed as she grew up, but that mask, it would remain. The masks always do.

“You showed fear the first time you thought it was occurring.”

Mariner scoffs and waves the idea off. “I was an emotional wreck. Who wasn’t that day, am I right?”

T’lyn looks away. 

“Hey I didn’t mean it like that.” Mariner quickly asserts, stepping closer. She rests a hand on T’lyn’s shoulder. “I wasn’t blaming you.”

T’lyn raises her head and meets Mariner’s gaze again. Guilt rests on her features. It is evident in the way Mariner’s lips fall, and her eyes sink. “I thought you would not wish to have your privacy invaded.”

Sadness gives way to a small smile. Mariner pulls T’lyn closer by her shoulder, into a sideways hug.

“Well, you know what you’re doing right?” Mariner asks with a delighted grin. Her unearned, brazen confidence will be her undoing one day. If those reckless tendencies of hers do not first. Hmm they do tend to go hand in hand.

“Yes, but it is still an invasion. Even if I were to do my best to avoid thoughts and memories you do not wish to share.”

Mariner shudders.

T’lyn starts to pull away from her grasp. When she was nearly free, Mariner shouts, “Wait.” and pulls her back.

Instead of hugging her, Mariner holds T’lyn still before her. Hands on the vulcan’s sleeve-covered part of her arms. Was she being considerate, or had it been a coincidence? It is hard to tell with Mariner. Does the difference matter? There have been multiple times where T’lyn has seen Mariner act in a considerate way without much thought, all while pretending to be the most inconsiderate person around. That too is a part of her act. To hide just how deeply she cares, despite all of her close friends knowing its depths.

“I trust you.” Mariner’s shoulders almost seem to lift up, as if simply saying that phrase has lightened them.

“I see.” 

Before she can step back, Mariner has let go of T’lyn’s arms only to take her hand. She walks the vulcan back over towards the candles. 

Mariner takes a seat in the empty space before the candles. “So how does this work? You just gotta touch my face and bam your vulcan touch telepathy does the rest?”

“That is one way of explaining it.” T’lyn slowly lowers herself onto her knees. 

Mariner unfolds her legs, and gets on her knees. She leans forward offering her face.

T’lyn holds up a hand, preventing Mariner was leaning any closer. Humans have never been known for their idea of what a respectable distance should be. “First, you need to be informed.”

“You already told me. You might find some things you don’t mean too.” Mariner shrugs. “It’s fine.”

T’lyn slowly lowers her hand. “Since we are engaging in this to help my mind focus, then you will be stepping into mine as well.” T’lyn closes her eyes. She deeply considers how best to word this next part. “You will be asked to help guide me past my distractions.”

“T’lyn are you nervous?”

“Nervousness is an emotion, which is fueled by fear. As a vulcan I know how to better expel any emotions which may lead to or be a result from fear.”

Mariner leans in closer, her smile more of a smirk. “I’m not going to judge you T’lyn.” She offers out her hand. T’lyn disregards in to reach for Mariner’s face. The human’s skin is warm beneath her touch. She should not be surprised. Mariner’s hands have often been warm on her skin. It seems she is truly a human who as they say, runs hot. That is saying nothing on her aesthetically pleasing appearance.

T’lyn takes a deep breath. Now is the time to expel those thoughts before they begin. Already she can feel Mariner’s excitement on the edge of her mind. It tingles, and crawls everywhere. For a moment T’lyn wonders if this is not an exercise in futility. Mariner is not an individual who has an easy time restraining her own energy and actions. What could she do for T’lyn to push away the distractions?

No. She has come this far. If she were to pull away now, she could say the connection was lost, but Mariner would have questions. She would offer herself up for a second attempt.

She may not always be the best at focusing but Mariner almost always finds the answer she needs.

Perhaps she will help T’lyn find answers as well.

“My mind to your mind.” She begins the old chant. The words are more of a theory then action. She had learned of mind melds on vulcan, learned how to perform one, but has never been the initiator before.

Mariner’s mind immediately has a presence within T’lyn’s own. It’s loud and full of an unbroken energy. In many ways T’lyn supposes this should not have surprised her. It is what humans call their spirit after all. Their undeniable presence within themselves.

She’s not entirely welcoming. There are many parts of Mariner’s mind that T’lyn can immediately tell have barely structured blocks around them. Mariner has not been trained in resistance telepaths, she does however, hold many secrets. Secrets her emotions swirl around with such a ferocity T’lyn knows she’s in no danger of accidentally stumbling upon them. So long as Mariner does not focus on them, they should be avoidable. At least on a conscious level. Many vulcan masters have warned of the unintentional subconscious blending that can occur with a mind meld.

T’lyn opens her own mind, and does her best to coax Mariner to follow. She seemingly does, bringing a certain amount of warmth and choas with her. Many thoughts push against T’lyn’s. The vulcan had planned to gently guide Mariner through, but perhaps that is too orderly to work in this instance.

‘Sometimes the only way to get to the source is to just get it out there.’

T’lyn could hear Mariner’s voice clear as day within her own mind. It’s something she could never picture Mariner saying, but sounds just like many of her previous statements all the same.

‘Whoa, lots of bottled up emotions here.’

‘Focus Mariner.’ T’lyn all but pleads.

“T’lyn I am.” Somehow she speaks the words aloud even as they cross through the bond.

She is. T’lyn realizes as she pushes down another rise of emotion. It is futile. Mariner can feel her surprise thanks to the meld. It is disquieting but logical to accept that the lack of focus was truly from her side of the connection.

Thoughts, emotions, and memories, they all begin to pass freely.

‘I think I found the distractions.’ Mariner announces as she wraps her essence around the issues. 

A memory of her bumping into a wall when walking with Rutherford. It interrupted what had been a stimulating conversation about ways they could tinker with the ship. Purely for scientific and efficiency purposes of course. She had been rather embarrassed in that moment days prior.

‘How inconsequital.’

‘It was embarrassing. That’s all it needs to be to be distracting.’

There’s logical in that statement, but still she should have risen above it. Many of the emotions in this mix are those she is supposed to have risen above.

Mariner clearly wants to say something. Her thoughts race with possible words, and while T’lyn can read them all, she focuses on none. If Mariner wanted them shared they would be louder, more purposeful. Instead she turns her focus on a thought Mariner’s consciousness was hovering around, circling it as if it had a big white light over it and she were a mere fly.

What a strange thought. T’lyn pushes in on the one Mariner’s encircles. The sooner she can clear these stray thoughts the better she will focus.

‘T’lyn?’ Mariner’s presence grows more pronounced as T’lyn brings the subconscious thoughts to the surface.

A flurry of images past through her mind. Images of memories, of Mariner holding her close. She has done so more than any other person T’lyn has ever known. Glimpses of memories turn into more fanciful thoughts. Events that had never happened, such as Mariner holding her for longer. T’lyn leaning in. Their lips almost.

Panic surges through T’lyn. Unceremoniously she severs the connection. Careful not to pull back her hands until Mariner was thoroughly and completely from her head. Her eyes shoot open as her face rises in temperature as the embarrassment she felt in the memory returns tenfold.

When she does peel her hands from Mariner’s face, the human is already snapping her own eyes open. The human quickly grabs hold of her wrists, keeping her hands from retreating completely. T’lyn curls her fingers inward. She’s careful not to touch Mariner as she presses her fingers against the inside of her palms.

“Hey,” Mariner’s voice is soft. A blush was creeping across Mariner’s face as well. T’lyn had almost missed it before.

There must be a lingering amount of influence over T’lyn because when Mariner starts to unfold her hands, T’lyn allows her. Mariner takes the lead pressing her fingertips clumsily against T’lyn’s. It is not a true vulcan gesture, but she knows that is what Mariner is attempting. Carried away by the moment, the emotions she had felt during their connection, and a number of other factors T’lyn will logically dissect later she leans forward and catches Mariner’s lips against her own.

Mariner leans in, tightening her grip over T’lyn’s hands as she pushes the vulcan back into a laying position.

When Mariner pulls back, T’lyn feels almost breathless. “I guess we should talk about this.”

“That is the more sound plan.”

“Yeah.” Mariner laughs. “It would be pretty sound.”

T’lyn does not smile but she could feel the corner of her lips threatening to turn up. “Since I have not been able to focus, I supposed I am not in the place to defer to my logic.” It’s a rushed excuse. She knows that. Mariner knows that. Maybe that’s why the human laughs and lets T’lyn call her back down.

As their lips meet again, T’lyn knows she will be unable to focus for a little while longer.

[aion-rsa]

Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 2 Episode 1 Review: Strange Energies

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This STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS review contains spoilers for Season 2, Episode 1.

With very few exceptions, each new season of any given Star Trek series always feels like a moment for the specific show to change things up. Riker grew a beard in Next Generation Season 2. Worf crashed Deep Space Nine in season 4. Archer started unbuttoning his collar and mussing up his hair in Season 3 of Enterprise. Discovery has literally had a different captain and premise every season. Even in The Original Series, the crew got themselves some Chekov. after their first year. You get it. A new season of Trek usually means one question: What’s new? What’s the same?

But, with the debut Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 2, that question doesn’t work. The show doesn’t feel remotely different, retooled, or radically changed from Season 1. If anything is different it’s simply that it’s even funnier and nerdier than Season 1. In 2020, Lower Decks was still novel and strange, but, now that we’re used to it, the show is proving to be better than perhaps anyone gave it credit. The debut Season 2 episode — “Strange Energies” — is hilarious, but it’s also deeply layered, so much so, that each part of itself is like a tiny replica of itself. Like a hilarious member of a funny, and thoughtful Borg collective.

The episode begins with Mariner playing out a badass fantasy on the holodeck, in which she is such a kickass Starfleet officer, that she escapes a Cardassian prison without really even trying. In this world, like last year’s “Crisis Point,” Mariner is god. She even leaves a hologram of Boimier because she’s “still pissed” at him for ditching her on the Cerritos in Season 1. Mariner has let her privileged status as Captain Freeman’s daughter go to her head, which is an arrangement neither of them likes and is pissing everyone off, including Ransom. So, when Ransom accidentally gets hit with the titular “Strange Energies,” and turns into a faux space god, the idea of someone else becoming a control freak takes over the plot. On top of this, Tendi is convinced that Rutherford isn’t his most authentic self, because — following a memory erasure in Season 1 — he now likes things he didn’t use to like, including eating pears and dating Ensign Barnes.

This layered theme works in all three storylines: Mariner and Freeman aren’t being their authentic selves and abusing their authority. Tendi is accusing Rutherford of not being himself and abusing her authority. Meanwhile, Ransom isn’t being his authentic self — actually, no, Ransom is totally being himself! But, of all the people “playing god” in this episode, Ransom has an excuse — he’s been imbuded with some “sci-fi stuff,” which Dr. T’ana likens to Gary Mitchell’s glowy eyes flip-out, a great callback not only to the famous TOS pilot episode “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” but also a reference to the very first episode of Lower Decks, “Second Contact.” In that episode, Mariner hit Boimler with a litany of famous Trek characters, including Gary Mitchell, who Boimler had never heard of. Lower Decks isn’t just content to reference other Trek, now with this new season premiere, it’s also referencing itself. Mariner feels a sense of faux-déjà vu when she asks Rutherford questions about his date with Barnes which is exactly what happened last year. The ship runs into a crisis because a second contact mission uncovered something the first contact mission missed. And, it all ends up with Mariner getting busted, even though she tried to do the right thing.

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The only thing missing is Boimler. At the very end, we see our wayward Bradford on the USS Titan, freaking the fuck out because whatever this crew is up to it’s way more hardcore than what’s happening on the Cerritos. Or is it? What’s great about Boimler losing his cool over a chase sequence on the Titan is it allows Lower Decks to make a statement about Star Trek’s bizarre ability to vary tone and style within the same narrative framework. The Next Generation arguably perfected this kind of thing in an episode like “Data’s Day,”; most of Data’s famous day is spent learning to tap dance, feeding his cat, and trying to not screw up Miles and Keiko’s wedding. But, the subplot also involved a Romulan spy who was gaslighting Data, stealing intel from the Federation, and was probably a secret member of the Zhat Vash! We don’t think of “Data’s Day” as an episode that sets up the dark Romulan action in Star Trek: Picard, we think of it as a goofy, heartfelt little Trek ditty. But that’s the trick. Ransom turning into a space god and trying to eat the ship, is, on paper, 100 times scarier and more dangerous than whatever “fluidic” action was happening with Boimler and the Titan at the end of this episode. The Titan is doing run-of-the-mill Star Trek stuff and so is the Cerritos. Kirk and Picard were always being hassled by space gods, who yes, were sometimes members of their own crew.  The joke of Lower Decks is that the spectacular things that happen in Starfleet are treated as run-of-the-mill. This lets the show refine a formula created by TNG, use the sci-fi backdrop to tell a heartwarming character story. And in this way, Lower Decks has captured the essence of why so many people love Trek in general, that unique combination of likable characters, who are good people, doing “sci-fi stuff.” In this way, “Strange Energies” is near perfect. The only reason it can’t get five stars out of five is Boimler isn’t in it enough. Let’s hope he Boims-up next week.

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